Historically, screen printing has been limited to the extent that the preparation of the materials is time-consuming, and therefore, expensive. Early screens were stretched in place, secured to a framework, trimmed to size, degreased, dried, coated with an emulsion coating, dried and then exposed to the desired image.
Over the past several years, the time consumption in silkscreen preparation has been reduced substantially through the use of retensionable frames including roller frames and then, even more recently, the provision of pre-cut fabrics which were cut to accommodate the predicted flexibility of the frames when under tension, further the fabric included splines attached to its edges to allow rapid attachment to the roller frames prior to tensioning, including snapping into slots in the roller.
Still more recently, in an attempt to reduce the time involved and to improve the consistency of the end product, it has been proposed that fabrics be pre-coated, substantially reducing the steps during preparation. However, the proposal has been for limiting the pre-coating of the central portion of the fabric, leaving the edges uncoated to eliminate perceived problems with the attachment of the coated fabric to the frames. The coating would obviously interfere with any adhesive securement.
Prior art known to the inventor includes:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,430,815 granted to Wulc on Feb. 14, 1984, which teaches the utilization of springs to provide for a limited amount of movement of the fabric toward the substrate;
U.S. Pat. No. 4,860,467 granted to Larson on Aug. 29, 1989, which teaches the method of securing the fabric to a stretching frame through the use of adhesive;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,611 granted to Rosson on May 19, 1992, which teaches a tensioning apparatus for stretching screen fabric, including at least one tensioning tool to selectively expand the frame to stretch the screen fabric thereon;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,327,828 granted to Barocas et al on Jul. 12, 1984, which teaches a clamping means and a process for protecting printing screens and frames;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,443,003 granted to Larson on Aug. 22, 1995, which teaches the utilization of a pre-cut fabric bordered with splines secured along the respective edges to facilitate the attachment of the fabric to a retensioning frame.